Houston Improves Drinking Water Compliance by Half

The City of Houston cross-connection control program team was struggling to maintain compliance while being asked to reduce costs. Houston sought an easy to implement and simple to use online solution. Since migrating to SwiftComply, Houston has dramatically improved compliance and lowered operating costs.

Doing More with Compliance Data

The Houston team tracks over 40,000 backflow assemblies each year. With a cross-connection control team of two, the city struggled with the workload.

They were also struggling to harness the full power of their data. They had multiple data streams that were impossible to analyze effectively using their current processes. The team knew they were missing valuable insights about their operational and regulatory compliance.

Houston needed a solution that would allow them to gather, manage, and analyze their compliance data in one place. They also wanted to automate many of their most time-consuming tasks, including printing and mailing reminder “test-due” letters.

Digitizing Backflow Prevention

The Houston cross-connection control program team was able to modernize their processes and proactively address their compliance issues quickly using a new online portal created by SwiftComply.

The portal allowed testers to upload reports directly to the city database. The system automated many of their most time-consuming tasks and gave the team a comprehensive real-time view over their entire network. The method of data collection also improved the reliability of their data, and advanced reports gave the team a better understanding of compliance patterns across their network.

Developing New Efficiencies and Reducing Costs

With SwiftComply, Houston is able to manage its entire backflow program from one central location. This change allowed them to quickly grow compliance by 25%. They also greatly improved the integrity and reliability of their data. The online portal allows testers to upload reports directly to the City database greatly reducing the amount of administrative time. Finally, this had allowed them to go paperless and introduce a processing fee for each test report uploaded to their system. The program is now 100% funded through these processing fees (charged to the tester).